I Won $1 Billion and Ditched the Deadbeats novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Wallet and Phone

Kyle takes his wallet and phone, Tanner hits back and reaches the Gas-N-Go, where the machine locks and Kyle's truck pulls up.

Kyle stopped the truck in the middle of the street and climbed out without closing the door.

He was a head taller than me and thirty pounds heavier, and he had never once had to run anywhere in his life.

"Get in," he said.

"No."

"You canceled the truck payment, Tanner. Do you know what happens if that bounces?"

"It's not my truck."

"It's got your name on the loan!"

"Then I guess it's mine," I said. "And I'm giving it back."

He laughed, a short ugly laugh, and held out his hand.

"Phone. You're going to fix every one of those payments right now, and then we'll forget the whole scene."

I stepped back.

He moved faster than I expected, and he caught my coat with one hand and dug into my pocket with the other.

My phone came out.

So did my wallet, which was my work ID, a bus pass, and the sixty-one dollars I had in the world.

"Give me that."

"Or what?" Kyle said, grinning. "You'll call Mom?"

I thought about every Thanksgiving he had gotten the drumstick.

I thought about the lake sticker in his truck's back window, the one for the Indian Lake Yacht Club.

I had never asked how a car salesman paid for a yacht club.

I hit him.

It was the first time I had ever hit my brother, and it was not a good punch.

It landed on the side of his jaw with the heel of my hand and mostly surprised both of us.

He stumbled into the open truck door.

His face went slack, and then red.

"You little," he said, and swung at me.

I ducked it, grabbed my phone back out of his fist, and ran.

He kept my wallet.

I didn't look back until I had crossed Wayne Avenue, and by then the truck's engine had already started again, and then stopped.

He was calling someone, probably our mother.

I kept walking.

The cold got into my coat and into my teeth.

It was a little after ten, and I had four miles to go on a bus pass I no longer owned.

The Gas-N-Go on Dorothy Lane was the only light on the block when I got there, a little before midnight.

I had stopped there almost every day for two years.

It was where I bought my coffee on the way to the warehouse, and where I had bought the ticket on Tuesday with the change from a five.

The woman behind the counter was the same one who always worked nights.

Her name tag said Lana.

She had red-brown hair twisted up in a pencil, a green vest, and a way of looking at you like she already knew your excuse.

"You're early for coffee," she said. "And you're bleeding."

I looked down.

My knuckle was split open from Kyle's tooth.

"It's not mine," I said, which was not quite true.

She tossed me a roll of paper towels across the counter.

"Rough night?"

"It was my birthday."

"Happy birthday," she said, without any pity at all. "Do you want a cupcake? We have one. It's from Tuesday."

I laughed, and it came out wrong, a little cracked, and she watched me do it.

I took the ticket out of my boot and put it flat on the counter.

"Can you scan this for me?"

"Lottery checker's right there. You can do it yourself."

"I did it on my phone. I want to see it on yours."

She looked at me for a moment.

Then she picked up the ticket, ran it under the red light, and waited.

The terminal beeped once.

She frowned.

She ran it again.

The little screen flashed a message in capital letters.

"SEE LOTTERY OFFICE. PRIZE EXCEEDS RETAILER LIMIT."

Lana read it twice.

I watched the color leave her face.

She was not the kind of person who lost her color easily.

"Tanner," she said, and I realized she knew my name too, from the card I used for coffee. "Is this the Wednesday drawing?"

"Yes."

"Did you check every number?"

"Four times."

She put the ticket down very carefully, as though it might go off.

Then she reached under the counter and slid a deadbolt on the front door.

"Listen to me," she said, in a low, steady voice. "You do not say a word to anyone. Not to a friend. Not to a cop. Not to your mother."

"My mother's the reason I'm bleeding."

"Good. Keep it that way."

Through the glass behind her, two headlights swung across the lot.

A black truck rolled in and stopped with its nose against the front window.

The driver's door opened, and Kyle stepped out into the light.

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